Tip.It Times - 21st August 2011

[SwreeTak]

Two good articles that take pretty much mirror the discussion that have been going on here on TIF since the Refer a Friend update. Espacially the first article "It's not dead - yet" was a very good article that states the same opinion as I have: The game is not dead or doomed. But Jagex really needs to start rethinking about some things. Especially they need to focus on the threat that the bots are to the game and the real players. More energy needs to be put down on taking care of these. A couple of years ago we could at least see some updates that told us what Jagex did to stop the bots. I, and I am sure many other players, would love to see more updates like these. Or at least that Jagex gave us more information about what they are doing to these issues.

The Member's Loyalty Program and the Refer a Friend update are a sign of that Jagex have become more greedy, which I don't like. It's however not as a huge "doom-update" that some sees it like. But I don't like them, that should be admitted.

Shortly said: Work harder, Jagex, and try to focus on the real problems of the game more and less about how you should get more money.

[CZ_TOH]

I used to think both Runescape and WoW were safe from the Asian MMO model of microtransactions

 

Guess time caught up and they couldn't resist

[Sabrisi]

This post is in regards to Not Totally Dead - Yet *edited to follow posting rules*

 

 

The mass amount of bots in the game is annoying. I've spent several hours reporting them after each and every slayer kill. I kill one monster and report a bot, rinse and repeat for every slayer task. But I do remember this game from 2003 when I first started playing. The very day I started playing I was lured into the wild and my iron dagger was lost forever. I had to go and make a bronze one. I really did think it was the end of the world as we knew it. I played for about 5 days on a F2P server then decided to just pay the $4.95.

 

I learned to stay out of the wild. I figured out what the skull meant over my head. I read up on the scamming and luring practices of other players. It’s simply called educating yourself. The day they took free trade out of the game I quit and never looked back. I have since played several MMO's that I have loved and enjoyed. Refer a Friend is nothing new to me. And to be honest Jagex actually did it in a way that won't hurt too many people that decide to play without it. If you were to chain together the 10% xp gain forever that means 1 million xp gives you 100,000 free xp.

 

 

Breakdown of what 10% xp bonus gets you:

 

You need: 417,099,510 xp to max every skill.

You get: 41,709,951 xp free if you chain RaF until you are maxed out in all skills.

 

It doesn't seem like that huge of an advantage to me. It looks like Jagex did a much better job at this then other MMO's I've played in the past.

 

World of Warcraft: RaF program: 400% xp gain and exclusive mount tied to your account

Everquest: Free low speed mount and 200% xp gain and AA points gained.

 

 

Break down of how a 400% xp gain affected WoW. New players of friends would max out levels and then had no clue on how to even play the game. The game actually starts after you hit max level. Older skilled players tried and failed to duel box two accounts at the same time which gave way to one effective party member not being able to play even as well as the worst player you knew. They pretty much just did nothing.

 

Break down of how 200% xp gain and AA points gained affected Eq. You would out level an area so fast without making any cash for new armor that it made the game hard to play. You could chronomage down levels to the content you wanted to be in but the questing in that game just got monotonous. The xp gain didn't go toward skill levels which meant you were level 60 and couldn't even make your own armor. To top that off you could actually fail skilling and waste materials and your time farming the materials. I do commend them for having a true double xp weekend that applied to skilling.

 

I even laugh at Jagex's attempt at bonus xp weekends. Most MMO's give a true double xp gain on weekends. The whole runescape community gets so happy and excited about this weekend and those players that have actually experienced a true double xp weekend kind of laugh at it. I see Jagex's point of not wanting to give away too much free xp. I do think they do a good job at regulating that part of the game.

 

Back to my original point; all the whining and complaining most people did on the forums about this game caused Jagex to do something huge and drastic to keep players happy. I'm sure they thought they were doing a good service to so many players out there taking out free trade, wild, and staking to stop the huge amounts of cash used for real world trading that it hurt THEIR bank accounts. I had 3 runescape characters; a pure for pking, a pure for staking and my main. If I was bored on one I would play on another. They not only lost me as a member but also lost my two other accounts.

 

So now I'm back in the game after hearing they brought back the wild, free trade and staking only to find bots everywhere. OMG EVERYWHERE!!!! I don't even know if the person next to me at any given time is a real player I can have a conversation with. I feel the bots have partly hurt the runescape community and they create an excessive amount of lag. They also forgot to bring back some key elements that kept most botters at bay. For example, randoms that killed, dying that lost you all the stuff you were holding, and being logged off after a very very short period of time spacing off into the clouds of your thoughts.

 

Oh yeah that was the stuff people were complaining about!! So as you can see fixing the one problem led them to come up with creative ways to stop another problem then to save face they had to fix it, BUT also had to keep in all the things that people loved about that update. I get a sad face when someone dies next to me and I don't get to loot their stuff at iron and steel dragons. (The last safe place from bots.) No one even has fear of dying anymore because they can just go get their stuff. Even at god wars where you need a kill count you have plenty of time to retrieve your lost things because your mom unplugged your computer so you would take out the trash!

 

The general exchange being a blind auction house is the reason many of you cannot skill and make money on finished products. It allows players that are wealthy to have queues set up for people that put things in the g.e for a normal reasonable price. It also allows for easier merchanting like those clans that raise the prices on you by manipulating supply and demand. Basic economics 101 here people. Back in the day people that merchant had to go to world 2 which was always full and type for hours and hours to sell their products. Remember the macroing for typing back then? Seems like such a small insignificant problem now!

 

In my opinion free trade isn't the problem for bots, nor is the wild or staking. Bots shouldn't even be blamed for the exuberant amount of cash floating around in this game. I think the blind auction is to blame for more problems then any of you have even mentioned in this thread.

[buzzsaw100]

I loved the first article, very nicely written, and addressing a big point about what new players see? If you think about it there is one update that could help us a lot. Bring back Tutorial Island!! That would be a multi-sided benefit to new players, firstly when they come into Runescape, they come into an environment where NO ONE can spam their chatboxes full of advertisements for this and that. Secondly, they are actually taught how to play the game, unlike this advisor system or whatever they have now that isn't as to the point as tutorial island was. Also, it reduces the amount of spambots in the game, because now, all the spammers have to do is create a new account and immediately can walk it to the GE or just leave it in Lumbridge, whereas with tutorial island, it would take a little bit longer for new spambots to be able to overload everyones chatboxes.

 

The second article, I didn't like as much. I generally hate people bashing on Jagex for trying to retain members. I mean they are there to make money, sorry guys but money makes the world go round, and when you get down to it, Runescape membership is the biggest moneymaker for Jagex and keeps their company going, and the long term goal of any company is to make money. Everyone likes this fantasy world where games are made just to make people happy. Sorry people but game developers are out their to make as much money as they can. Also the writer of this article made it seem as though you could get a 10% xp bonus simply by making a noob account, but thats not how it works. You send out an invitation by email to someone to play Runescape. That new player will start off with a starter pack (prolly some bronze/iron armor and a few shrimps) and double xp for a week (on stats lvl 30 or less) which is a good idea, because that way a new player can at least get started a bit easier. The person who invites this new player will ONLY get the 10% xp boost IF the new player becomes a PAID member within 2 weeks of creating the account.

[Jonanananas]

Also the writer of this article made it seem as though you could get a 10% xp bonus simply by making a noob account, but thats not how it works. You send out an invitation by email to someone to play Runescape. That new player will start off with a starter pack (prolly some bronze/iron armor and a few shrimps) and double xp for a week (on stats lvl 30 or less) which is a good idea, because that way a new player can at least get started a bit easier. The person who invites this new player will ONLY get the 10% xp boost IF the new player becomes a PAID member within 2 weeks of creating the account.

 

The writer or this article is correct though. Nobody(or at least, not the majority) complain about there being a refer-a-friend system. The problem is that people can refer a noob account and just pay membership for it for one month - bam! 10% xp bonus.

 

 

Also, of course a company is out to make money, and that's ok, that's good. The thing is that you have to walk a line between marketing and some responsibility towards your loyal customers. And if a certain marketing method is hugely unliked by your loyal customers(becaues it goes against one of the core principles this game once had), I think it's something that should be worked on and not just ignored. Jagex seemed to do pretty well the last 10 years without stunts like this. Why can't they do some other marketing method which isn't a microtransactionß